Postdoctoral Research Associate
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan
I am currently a postdoc in Dr. Tom Sharkey’s lab in the Plant Research Laboratories at Michigan State University. I am working on finding out how different environmental factors, specifically CO2, regulates isoprene emission from plants and what is the mechanism behind it. It is important to study isoprene emission under increasing CO2 levels in order to understand how plants will respond to these changes in the future. Prior to my postdoctoral research, I did my PhD in Dr. Wayne Versaw’s lab at Texas A&M University where I studied spatiotemporal dynamics of inorganic phosphate distribution in root developmental zones. Using a combination of pharmacological treatments and biosensor-based fluorescence assays, we developed high resolution spatial maps of phosphate uptake, recycling, and vacuolar sequestration in the root zones and found that vacuolar sequestration is lower in the transition zone resulting in higher phosphate concentration in these cells than the adjacent zones.